Barbour County index. [volume] (Medicine Lodge, Kan.) 1880-current, 1887-12-21
STARTLING SURGERY.
The Vexed Question of the Cura-
bility of Phthisis-
Recovery OF q Woman Who Was About
Dead-A Hole Cut in Her Body by
Which n Pailful of Fluid
Was Pumped OAt.

Right in the face of the weight of au-
thority that phthisis is incurable comes
the strange case Of Mary Nally, a patient
in the Charity Hospital, writes the New
York correspondent of the Chicago
Tribune. She is forty years old and her
life has been sober, temperate and in
dustrious. She has been q widow for
many years, and had a hard struggle TO
raise family of children. Three of her
children had the diphtheria together, and
she was worn out with long watching and
faithful nursing, and when her children
died her system was run down completely
and she was in a splendid condition for
the seeds of the disease to take root. In
q week after the children were buried the
mother was low with the disease which
had carried them off, and when her strong
constitution had finally conquered the
malady she was in a very debilitated con-
dition. An effort was made to build up
her system, and for a time it was
successful, but it was only short
lived. She got enough strength to get
out of bed and move around little, and
then the dreaded symptoms of phthisis
were manifested. To speak required a
great effort, and the least exercise caused
labored breathing and a sense of suff foca !.
tion. A hacking cough came on, so violent
that it seemed as if the flesh would be
shaken from the bones during the spasm.
A severe pain in the right lung was ever
present, and the woman wasted away like
mist before the rising sun. The bright
hectic flush gave the glow of health to the
ashy hue or approaching death, and the
omnious cold sweats came on with the APP
proach of night. The woman's mind
flashed and flickered with an occasional
n L. l.
burned away, and the usual constitutional
disturbance attendant upon this disease
appeared in an aggravated form. When
she was taken to the hospital she was, il
was thought, in the last
stages of consumption, with only a few
days to live. Every breath was drawn
in pain. She could not sleep, but lay in a
comatose state for hours. Her chest was
greatly swollen, and the internal organs
were in the abdominal cavity, where
they had been forced by pressure from
above. The right lung did not act at all.
The second day after she was admitted
to the hospital the doctor performed the op-
GRAFTON of thoracentesis. The patient was
put slightly under the influence of ether.
An incision was made in the right side.
In order to escape cutting the intercostal
artery the opening was made between the
only a small one, and through it a canul a
was passed into the pleural cavity. A
rubber tube was attached to the canula
and by using a hand-ball the fluid was
pumped out. It was light-colored fluid
and contained no trace of pus. A great
deal more was taken away than there
was thought to be in the chest,
the quantity being sufficient to fill
an ordinary sized water-pail. In twenty.
four hours the chest was filed with
| liquid again, and it had developed so rap.
idly that the patient nearly died from suf
location before it was discovered. The
canula was again put into the wound and
the fluid was removed. The canula was
not taken away this time, but was united
| to a rubber tube, the end of which hung
below the patients body to allow the fluid
to escape. The end was sealed by placing
it in a basin of water, so as to keep air
from getting into the chest. There was
| constantly more puS appearing in the lis.
charge, the flow of which kept up, and tc
facilitate its removal four more opening.
were made into the chest and drain tubes
introduced. This prevented accumula-
tions of fluid, and in about a week the flow
began to decrease. The patient had fire.
! quent attacks of suffocation, which were
not understood at first, but it was finally
shown that air was getting into the cav.
ity of the chest, and as this meant, soon.
er or later, a sudden death, a hand-pumr
was kept going all the time by an
attendant. This kept the chest free
from air, and gave the part
through which the air en- tered, and
which had no doubt been made by the ac-
cidental thrusting of trocar into the
lung, a chance to heal. The discharge kept
constantly diminishing in quantity, and
| at the end of two weeks one tube kept the
chest free from fluid, and after week 5
constant pumping, night and day, the
ruptured air passage closed, and no more
air got into the cavity.
When the sessation of the flow of pus
and fluid from the chest began an i'm
provement in the patients condition and
it has been kept up steadily for two
months, and she is now able to sit up and
take a square meal. 1t is believed that
the right lung is entirely gone. The left
lung is only slightly affected. Since the
patient is on the road to recovery, there
is a dispute as to her disease. Some ply.
sicians claim that it was hydrothorax
and others that it was phthisis. There is
no doubt about the patient having ninety
per cent. of the consumptive's symptoms; !;
but what shall the layman say when the
doctors disagree?